The Avery Shaw Experiment

Grayson


Damn Aiden to the very deepest depths of hell. Avery was back at square one with her heartbreak, and I was back at square one with her. We’d had this amazing moment—we’d shared her first kiss—but she couldn’t even muster up a smile for me the next morning at school.

That whole week I couldn’t get much more out of her than two- or three-word sentences. She was too busy watching Aiden from a distance. He’d rejoined the science squad for lunch, but it was clear he wasn’t really part of the group anymore. I was sure Avery blamed herself for it.

I also know she wanted to talk to him, but every now and then he would look our way and glare with such hatred it would make Avery sick to her stomach, and she couldn’t bring herself to speak to him.

His death looks were all for me. I know because he told me so. He accused me of stealing his best friend. I told him it wasn’t stealing if he’d already thrown her to the curb like a piece of garbage. We almost came to blows over it. The only reason I didn’t punch him was because it would hurt Avery, and she’d been hurt enough. But again, Avery saw his anger and blamed herself.

On Friday, Aiden left the cafeteria early. I hadn’t been paying attention, so I wasn’t sure what Avery meant when she said, “He didn’t eat any of his lunch.”

“What?” I asked.

I followed her worried gaze just in time to see my brother skulk out of the room.

“Aiden,” Avery explained. “He didn’t eat any of his lunch. He just threw it out. Has he been eating at home?”

“I don’t know. He hasn’t come out of his room at all this week except to pick fights with me. If he’s having a hard time right now, I say let him suffer. Maybe it’ll make him think twice before he acts like such a jackass in the future.”

Avery set down the apple she’d been nibbling on. “He’s all by himself right now, Grayson. You’re mad at him. He doesn’t want to have anything to do with me. Our friends tolerate him, but it’s clear they’ve all taken my side; and now that he’s broken up with Mindy, he doesn’t have any of his new friends, either. I snuck into his debate yesterday for a few minutes just to check on him, and it looked like Mindy had turned his whole team against him. He doesn’t have any friends anymore.”

“He did it to himself, Aves.”

“I know, but I still feel bad for him.”

Avery sighed.

“Why don’t we go do something fun tonight?” I suggested. “Or we could do something for the experiment. We haven’t worked on it in forever.”

Avery cut me a grave look. “Working on the experiment is what made this mess so bad in the first place.”

It was hard for me not to lose my patience. I was so tired of this. I’d been mostly joking the night I asked her to kiss me for scientific reasons. Yeah, I really thought it would help her, but mostly I just wanted to kiss her. I thought she understood that, but she’d clung to the idea that our kiss was nothing more than a case of trial and error ever since it happened. I guess she thought if she told herself it meant nothing, then maybe Aiden wouldn’t be so disgusted with her for kissing me . . . you know, since clearly he considered me the ultimate scum of the universe.

The problem was that our kiss hadn’t meant nothing. Not to me. I’d wanted it so bad. I’d waited for the exact right moment when I was sure it was what she wanted too, and I’d thought of nothing else since it happened.

“Do you regret kissing me?” I blurted suddenly, surprising everyone present, myself included.

Avery’s face paled as she took in all the curious stares. She looked down at her lap without answering me. I felt bad for the audience, but now that I’d started this I had to finish it. “I know you feel guilty about it because of Aiden, but do you regret it? Do you wish I hadn’t done it? Do you think I played you?”

She flinched at the last question and looked up at me with her big blue eyes full of concern for me. “Of course I don’t think you played me. I know that’s not what that kiss was about. You were trying to help me. Just because it didn’t work doesn’t mean I’m mad at you for it.”

“But do you regret it?”

It took her a minute to answer. She couldn’t meet my eyes, and when she spoke, it was so quiet that if she hadn’t shaken her head, I might not have understood her.

“No. I don’t think so.”

When I let out a breath, I realized how much I’d needed that answer. I didn’t like the “think so” part, but at least it wasn’t a yes.

“Good,” I said. “Because I wouldn’t take it back for anything.”

She looked up at me again, surprised by my confession, and I asked her something I’d never asked any other girl before. “Will you be my girlfriend, Avery? Officially, I mean?”

Avery wasn’t the only person around the table to gasp. I did my best to hold her eyes with mine so that she wouldn’t pay attention to the people watching us and freak herself out.

“But . . .” Her shock turned to confusion. “You don’t do the girlfriend thing. You always say that. You’ve never had one before.”

“A guy can change his mind if the right girl comes along, can’t he?”

“Um . . .”

“I know I have a reputation.”

Someone snorted and a few others snickered, which really didn’t help my case any, but I was determined. “I’ve never been interested in a girlfriend before, Aves, but you make me want to try it. Will you give us chance?”

Pam and Chloe both sighed like I’d just said the most romantic thing in the world, but Avery didn’t melt like they did. She cast a quick glance toward the door that Aiden had just walked out of.

I suddenly wanted to punch something very, very badly. “You can’t possibly still want him.”

“It’s not that,” she said. “I’m just really mixed-up emotionally. I’m scared and confused and still just really, really hurt. I’m not over it. I’m not over him.”

“How can you not—”

“I want to be,” she said quickly, not letting me finish. “I try to be. I even thought I didn’t want him anymore for a while, but then he broke up with his girlfriend and some sick part of me that loves torture got hopeful.”

“Aves—”

She shook her head, still not letting me interrupt. “It’ll never happen. I know that. I’m past denial, remember? I hate that I feel this way. I hate that he can still affect me.”

She searched my face for understanding. “I would love nothing more than to say yes to you right now, but it would be in hopes that it would help get him out of my head, and that wouldn’t be fair to you. You deserve so much better than that. You deserve a girl whose whole heart is in it, not some permanently-damaged mental case.”

I had to read between the lines. She’d said no, but it wasn’t really a rejection.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s say, hypothetically, that you weren’t damaged goods. If my brother weren’t in the picture, if I had been born an only child, if all you knew was me, would you consider being my girlfriend then?”

I braced myself for a real rejection.

“Grayson,” she said tiredly. “If that were the case, I wouldn’t have to consider it. I’d probably already be naming our future babies.”

I am not often taken by complete surprise, but that comment had me reeling.

Avery gave me a sad smile and slipped her arm around me. It was the first hug she’d given me since we kissed. “You have no idea how amazing you are. This is about me. I promise.”

I hugged her back and felt my smile spread from ear to ear. “All you had to do was say you weren’t ready,” I teased, wanting to lighten the atmosphere before she started dwelling on how miserable she felt again. “I can wait. We’ll get your heart all nice and patched up and then you can say yes to me.”

“If you actually manage to fix my heart, I’ll say yes to whatever you want.”

Avery was so innocent I know she didn’t mean that statement the way my brain interpreted it—she probably didn’t even realize it could be taken in such a way—but still, my mind went from zero to dirty in no time flat.

“Anything I want?” I laughed. “Will you do me a favor and put that in writing?”

She finally caught my meaning, and I was rewarded with that cute little embarrassed shriek of hers. “Grayson!” And the rosy cheeks. “You know I didn’t mean that!”

“Believe me, I know,” I said mournfully. “But you did mention having my babies, so I know you’ve at least thought about going there with me. I’d say there’s hope for my future.”

“Grayson! Oh my gosh! Stop!”

“Okay. Okay. Fine.” I really didn’t want to stop. I loved getting her all worked up. “I’ll stop on one condition.”

“What?” she asked so warily that I laughed at her.

“You can’t let Aiden ruin your birthday weekend. Don’t smart people know how to compartmentalize? File him away in your stress-about-later folder, and starting right now, just think about how much awesome fun we are all going to have tomorrow.”

The mention of our skiing overnighter got Owen, Pam, and Chloe all talking before Avery could respond, but their excitement perked her up. “Make sure you all pack your swim suits,” I said. “Our building has a sick indoor pool and a hot tub.” Then, because I couldn’t resist, I leaned down and whispered in Avery’s ear. “Unless you’d rather just hit the shower together again. But then it’s your turn to be naked.”

Avery shrieked again, just like I hoped she would.

That conversation at lunch was the most life I’d seen in Avery since my brother caught us kissing. I wanted to make sure her mood stayed happy for her birthday the next day, so I showed up at her house after school prepared to keep her distracted the rest of the day.

“Grayson!” She was more excited to see me than I’d expected. “What are you doing here?”

I held up my science journal. “We only have a month until the science fair. We have work to do.”

Avery smiled and opened the door wide to let me in. “I don’t know why Mr. Walden was worried about you being my partner,” she said as she directed me into her living room. “You’ve been more of a slave driver than a slacker.”

I rolled my eyes. “A slave driver? We haven’t worked on this since I took you to that party weeks ago.”

Avery gave me a confused look. “Didn’t you write up an entry in your journal about the kiss?”

“Why?” I eyed her journal as she took it from her bag and set it out on the coffee table in front of us. “Did you?”

I was hoping to fluster her, but instead she frowned again. “Of course I did. We have to record all of our experiments.”

I resisted the urge to bang my head against a wall.

Avery paused and then sent me a panicked expression. “You are recording our experiments in your journal, aren’t you? Because we need your viewpoints on everything to keep the integrity of this project.”

“Aves, relax. Yes, I’ve kept my dumb journal up-to-date. I blabbed all about our kiss in it, okay?”

Suddenly curious about what she’d written on the topic of our kiss, I snatched up her journal and flipped to the last entry. I thought she’d freak, but she just smiled at me and asked if I wanted something to drink.

I assumed that was permission enough, so I read her entry as she went in search of some soda. All I can say is no freaking wonder she considered our kiss an experiment. I flipped back through all of her entries and found every step of this project mapped out in detailed outlines.

“What is this?” I complained when she came back and handed me a Sprite. My voice conveyed all the confusion, disappointment, and horror I felt.

“My journal?” she asked, confused.

“This is not a journal. This is . . . it’s a freaking textbook. Where’s all the good stuff?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know, all the girly stuff.” I kicked my voice into my best falsetto. “OMG I got my first kiss tonight! It was AH-MAZING! Grayson Kennedy is so hot!” Bringing my voice back to normal, I flipped the open book so she could see it. “There’s not one single exclamation point, smiley face, or heart scribbled in this thing.”

Avery burst into the biggest laugh I’d ever heard from her. She went into full hysterics.

“What?” I demanded.

“It’s not a diary, Grayson!” She had to wipe tears from her eyes. “It’s a scientific study!”

I failed to see the difference.

Avery looked at my face and fell into another fit of laughter. Once she could talk again, she opened the book—I refused to call it a journal—to the last entry and started pointing things out. “It’s a log book of all the work we’ve done through the experiment.”

“It looks like a bunch of outlines. What is this pattern you’re using?”

Trying very hard to get her giggles under control, she pointed at the first heading. “It’s called the scientific method,” she said. “It’s the process by which science is carried out. Basically it boils down to question, hypothesis, prediction, test, and analysis.”

“What does that even mean?”

Aves got that look on her face that she’d had when she handed me a bowling ball and told me about Newton’s Laws. It was a little pitying, completely amused, and slightly excited. I could tell she liked teaching. She’d be a great teacher, actually.

“Here.” She sat down next to me and opened the book back to the kiss entry. “First you have to have a question. In this case, yours was, ‘Why can’t Avery move on from the guilt stage?’ Your hypothesis was that I was self-fulfilling the feelings of guilt and subconsciously repressing the anger. Next you predicted that if I could be forced to feel something out of sequence, it might break the cycle and put me back on a more natural path. You tested it by kissing me. The analysis is the result of the test. In this case the experiment failed because afterward, despite momentarily experiencing feelings of acceptance and happiness, the second I was faced with the original problem, I went right back to guilt.”

I had no idea what to think. I read her “analysis” again and frowned. “Geez, Aves, you sure know how to bleed all the romance out of a kiss. I must have really sucked performance-wise if this is how you remember it.”

“Grayson, this journal is a record of our scientific research. It doesn’t depict my personal feelings on the matter.” Avery’s face crept into fire-engine territory. “Of course you didn’t suck. I think that might be impossible. I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect first kiss.”

She really looks so adorable when her face is all pink like that. She was so close to me too and smelled completely mouthwatering as always.

“I don’t know. The fact that you could even look at that kiss analytically after it happened means it wasn’t good enough. I think you’d better give me another chance to do it better.”

I couldn’t get my eyes to look anywhere but her lips—those lips that I just had to taste again. Right now.

I started to lower my face to hers, and she quickly leaned forward out of my reach. “Actually,” she said, “I think I’d better take a look at your journal.”

“Oh, no you don’t!” I forgot all about kissing Avery and scrambled for my journal before she could get her analytical hands on it.

“But this is going to be turned in. It’s going to be judged, Grayson, and now you have me worried now that there’s not enough actual science being recorded in it.”

“Are you kidding? There is so much science going on up in here that I deserve a freaking PhD.”

“Then why can’t I see it?”

There was no way I was showing her this journal filled with crap about how I was getting a crush on her, and how I love to make her blush, and how dancing with her had blown my mind beyond all reason. Especially not after seeing her stupid scientific method. No freaking way. I was going to have to rewrite the whole thing from the beginning before I turned it in.

I tucked the book more securely into my arms. “Because I am the outside, unbiased observer, remember? Reading my thoughts before it’s over would completely taint the whole experiment.”

Avery glanced at the journal again but stopped insisting. “You’re right. I’m sorry. But will you let me read it after the science fair?”

You see? This is why journals are lame. How did I turn into such a girl?

“I guess that depends on the outcome of the experiment.”

Avery actually pouted at me. It was freaking adorable. Every bit as cute as when she blushed. Maybe a little sexy even. “Fine,” she said. “But you do realize that people are eventually going to read it, right? The judges and Mr. Walden? The book will be on display at our booth for anyone visiting the science fair.”

I crossed my arms defiantly. “Well, then once it’s on display, you can flip through it all you’d like. For now it’s off limits. But it does need some more entries, so we need to get working on this anger business. I have a few theories that need to be tested. See? I’m all over this science business.”